


Cover Your Tracks

by Zelos



Series: Administrivia [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, Gen, High School, Minor Character(s), POV Minor Character, POV Outsider, Secret Identity, Secret Identity Fail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 01:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11498925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: Kids didn’t lie as well as they’d like to believe. Neither did adults, for that matter.Five times Principal Morita suspected.Spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming.





	Cover Your Tracks

**1.**

For obvious reasons, if there was even a whiff of illicit, criminal, or otherwise obscene activity on school computers, the IT department has to investigate. If the suspect had outright admitted to such activities…well, you’d probably brace yourself for what you may find.

“Nothing?” Ken Morita said into the phone.

“Nothing,” confirmed his IT head.

Ken pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re sure,” he said, for the fifth time.

“Positive.”

Ken sighed gustily. “So, what _was_ he watching on there?”

“Well, he logged into workstations seven and nineteen. On seven he loaded the instruction manual for an Audi TT Roadster. On nineteen he was tracking a phone through Find My Phone. No illicit, sexual, or obscene content anywhere.”

“You’re sure,” Ken said again.

_Click._ The dial tone rang angrily into his ear. Ken supposed he deserved that. He dropped his own phone onto its cradle.

Ned Leeds was a good kid. Ken has never made personal acquaintance with the kid the entire time Ned has been at Midtown School of Science and Technology. Besides, if Ned’s grades in Information Technology, Computer Programming, and Network Fundamentals were any indication, the kid was plenty smart enough to not watch porn on the school network where he could be tracked. And he had been tracked. Except the tracking hadn’t turned up anything, which meant Ned hadn’t been watching porn after all, or he had sanitized his electronic trails so thoroughly that an entire IT department couldn’t find it.

Ken quickly dismissed the latter supposition. Ned was smart, but he was still just a high school kid. And he wasn’t the one interning at Stark Industries.

Which meant that Ned probably hadn’t been watching porn after all. Facilities had sanitized the computer lab thoroughly, just in case, but Ken highly doubted there was any cause for it. So why on earth did Ned claim to be watching porn?

There wasn’t any point in guessing. It was probably something innocuous, stupid, and far beyond his imagination. Guessing would only make it worse. Still, the subject matter warranted a stern conversation.

Ken sighed and picked up his phone again. “Janet, can you ask Ned Leeds to come to my office?”

 

Ned Leeds shuffled into his office with the air of a man walking to his execution. “Y-you wanted to see me, Mr Morita?”

“Come in, Ned. Have a seat.”

Ned sank into the chair, eyes darting nervously around the room. His eyes paused for a moment on the photograph of Private Morita. The photo tended to have that effect on kids.

It also told Ken who had been paying attention in history class.

“Ms Warren told me about homecoming night.” Ned stiffened in his chair, eyes going wide. “She said that you said you were watching porn.”

Ned was silent in his chair, staring down at Ken’s desk.

“I think you know better than that, Ned.” Ken waited a beat, watching the kid squirm. “But you know what’s funny? I had the IT department pull up your browsing activity and there wasn’t a shred of porn anywhere.”

“I was watching it on my…phone.” Ned was beet red, voice shaking like a leaf.

“I guess you were in the computer lab for some privacy?”

“Y-y-yeah.”

Ken had learned long ago to use the power of silence to his advantage. He watched Ned carefully. Ned avoided his eyes, his laced fingers shaking in his lap.

“You know,” Ken kept his voice calm, and so quiet that Ned almost had to lean in to hear, “when IT pulled your logs, the only things you’d pulled up on two separate lab computers was an Audi instruction manual and a Find My Phone trace.” He waited a pointed beat. “You were pretty busy, using three screens at once. Especially with one being so…distracting.”

Silence.

“Whose phone were you tracking, Ned?”

Ned drew a breath. It sounded like a gulp. “Mine.”

Ken arched a brow. “You just said you were watching porn on your phone.” Kids didn’t lie as well as they’d like to believe. Neither did adults, for that matter.

Ned clamped his mouth shut. Ken thought he could hear teeth chattering.

Ken’s voice was very quiet. “Whose phone was it, Ned?”

“Peter’s.” Ned sounded like he was about to cry.

“Peter Parker?” Ned’s pinched expression was answer enough.

Ken leaned back into his seat. He felt a little bad, doing this to the poor kid. “You’re not in trouble, Ned.” At that, Ned sagged in his chair like a man who’d been allowed a stay of execution. Ken allowed the corner of his mouth to quirk, just a little. “If your logs had been different I would definitely have to discipline you, but I can’t _prove_ you were watching porn. And I prefer to believe in innocence until proven guilty.”

Ned looked at Ken in the eye for the first time since he’d entered the office. “I’m…not in trouble?”

“No. No detention, no phone call home, no suspension, no community service.” The colour was returning to the kid’s face. “You may go now, if you like.”

The boy stared at Ken like he was expecting a trick. Ken raised his brows and nodded. Ned scrambled out of his seat and shot toward the door.

“Ned?”

Ned froze, hand on the doorjamb. He looked back, terror in his eyes.

Ken allowed himself to smile. “Don’t watch porn at school.”

Ned could only give a stricken nod. Ken nodded back. The boy took that as the permission it was meant to be and positively fled the room.

Ken watched him go.

 

**2.**

Experience had taught Ken that not all parents or guardians cared about the academic success of their kids. They ran the gamut from the helicopters for whom 99% wasn’t good enough, to the absents who couldn’t care less whether their kid showed up at school. However, it was rare to find the parent or guardian who straddled _both_ ends of that spectrum.

“Mrs Parker,” he said patiently, “I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. Peter’s absences have risen to an unacceptable level. He doesn’t even stay through detention, which rather defeats the purpose of detention.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “He told me he wouldn’t do that anymore.”

“I’m afraid that’s not the case. There hasn’t been a single day this week where Peter was actually here for the entire school session.”

May Parker drew a tight breath and abruptly changed tacks again. “Well, his grades are still fine, right? What’s the problem?”

Ken raised his eyebrows, not that May could see. “I concede that Peter’s grades are still quite high—not as high as they used to be, but high—but we want our students to become well-rounded adults, not just studious academics.” Admittedly many adults he knew could use a refresher course or three on those finer points. “To that point, reliability, punctuality, respect, and the ability to follow due process—those are all lessons we want to instill in our students. He would not fare well if he dashes off without explanation in the middle of work.”

“He still has that Stark internship, right?” May’s voice was artificially airy. “I think his career prospects are just fine.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “I don’t think even Tony Stark would approve of kids disappearing mid-day and coming back with two black eyes and a possible concussion.”

“He _what?_ ” The armour had finally cracked; May’s voice was shrill and slightly panicked.

“Peter has been getting into fights.” Ken enunciated each word carefully, all the better to express the gravity of the situation. “Bad ones. On many occasions, he comes back into class with bruises on his face but won’t tell me, or any of the other teachers, whom he was fighting with. And those are the injuries we can see. I suspect there may be more, but he adamantly refuses to go to the nurse’s office despite repeat instructions to do so. He likely just doesn’t come back to school to let us see the results of the worse incidents.”

“Peter has been getting into fights,” May repeated slowly with a dazed air, as if it was finally sinking in.

“This is the first time I’ve managed to catch you on the phone,” Ken said carefully. “However, we have sent emails and letters to your home as well. Have you not received them?”

There was a long pause. “I’ll talk to Peter,” May finally said, and hung up.

Ken stared at the dead phone in his hand, at a loss.

 

**3.**

Larry banged into Ken’s office without warning, startling the latter into dumping his mug of coffee down his front and onto his keyboard. “ _Shit_ —what the _hell_ —”

“Never mind that,” Larry snapped as Ken tried to blot his shirt with the nearest office memo, “Roger glued himself to the floor.”

Ken jerked up. “What? Roger Harrington?”

“ _Yes_ , now come _on_ ,” Larry insisted. “Half the school will be there before you at this rate!”

Coffee stain forgotten, Ken catapulted from his seat and chased Larry out of the office at not-quite a run. “How the f—” he glimpsed a student several feet away “—hell did this happen?” His polished shoes squeaked on the linoleum.

“I’ll let Roger explain that one.”

By the time the pair arrived at the science lab there was already a small crowd gathering. Teachers tried in vain to herd curious students back to their classrooms; most of the students had abandoned any pretense of disinterest and were crowded around the open door, gawking.

“Okay, kids, back to your classrooms,” Ken announced loudly, pushing his way through. Larry closed the door behind them and they joined a second, smaller crowd, this time of adults. “What, the _hell_ , is going on?”

“Hi, Ken.” The science teacher in question looked up from where he was seated on the floor. “What happened to your shirt?”

“Never mind my shirt.” Ken crouched down to Roger’s eye level—a difficult feat in a suit. “What did you do to your hand?”

“Oh, this? I don’t know.” Roger sounded very calm for a man whose hand was glued to the floor. “I only yelled because I couldn’t reach the acetone.”

“The acetone didn’t actually help,” Sarah added wryly, holding up the squirtbottle for emphasis. “Neither did alcohols.”

“What _is_ that,” Stacey wrinkled her nose, “contact cement?”

“I’m not sure.” Roger turned to look at the adhesive entrapping his left hand. “It’s at least as strong as contact cement, but doesn’t seem to be visibly curing or forming a skin. If anything, it looks fibrous. Stretchy, too.” He yanked his arm with sudden force; the mysterious white substance moved minutely and immediately sprung back into place. Roger shrugged. “I found a patch of it on the floor while I was cleaning up. Looked like a spill.”

“And you just went and touched it? You’re a science teacher!” Stacey groaned.

“Did anyone try cutting it? Cured contact cement can be cut. I mean, it’s not contact cement but—”

“Tried it,” Sarah deadpanned. “It ate the boxcutter.”

“ _Everybody shut up_.” Ken resisted the urge to tear at his hair. At least the substance didn’t seem to be immediately harmful. That one small victory bled into relief and warped into sarcasm, razor-sharp. “ _One_ , random mysterious chemical and you went and touched it?! Roger, this is going on your yearly review.”

“Ouch,” Larry said. Ken ignored the peanut gallery.

“ _Two_ ,” Ken said loudly (he was aiming for forced calm but probably landed south of hysteria), “random mysterious chemical and you people applied more random chemicals on top of it?!”

“We thought the kids were pranking with industrial adhesives,” Derek defended. “I mean, two of us combined couldn’t budge it. It seemed like industrial adhesives.”

“You are all idiots.” It was horribly unprofessional. He’d apologize later. “Derek, go call HazMat, now.”

 

There were a lot of milestones that you didn’t want to reach, as a teacher, an administrator, or a person in general. Somehow, they all seemed to involve phone calls to various people: Child Protective Services, first responders, surviving families. You never wanted to make that call. Most of them ended up calling at least a few during their careers; Ken certainly has.

HazMat, however, was a first.

They evacuated the entire wing and zoned off the premises with barrier tape and cones. Technically it was only a partial evacuation, but with all this excitement there was no hope of anyone else getting anything done. The remainder of the school performed their own sluggish evacuation in fits and spurts until the entirety of the school population was on the football field, milling about and watching their tax dollars at work. The emergency personnel completely ignored the din, going through their motions with practiced efficiency: tarps and mats were brought in, water lines and hoses were set up, decontamination trailer, spray tanks, buckets, sponges, blankets and sheets…

“How bad do you think the water damage will be?” Stacey murmured, watching the HazMat team tape up their suits.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Ken gritted back. There were several unpleasant conversations with the superintendent in his near future.

All in all, the process took about an hour and a half including setup and takedown, which (according to a paramedic taking pity on his anxiety) was not a bad time as these things went. Apparently a firefighter’s axe made short work of the mysterious adhesive; scraping off the residue had taken up the majority of the rescue time. Roger was stripped, hosed, washed again, wrapped in a gown, rolled out on a stretcher, and eventually pronounced healthy, though Ken was sensible enough to tell him to not come back until the next day.

He thought he should excuse all of them, students included, for the rest of the day (preferably for the indeterminate future). However, the superintendent would have his head, so back to class they all went, useless as it may be.

“Will I get some sort of…report, notice, something?” Ken asked a firefighter as the last of the setup was carted away. “Or do I have to wait until the police report? Will there be a police report?”

The firefighter exchanged a look with his partner; both smirked. “You’ll hear back. Probably sooner than you think.”

“Clear as mud,” Ken muttered, watching the last of them leave.

 

Two hours later, Ken was in his office and up to his eyeballs in emails and OSHA paperwork. He still hasn’t mustered up the courage to look at the insurance papers (despite the HazMat team’s best efforts, they had not fully contained the water runoff). His new keyboard sucked. The coffee stain seemed to have chemically bonded onto his shirt, the ruined fabric indicative of his life. If he left before 9 pm tonight he would consider himself a lucky man.

His phone rang. He groaned. It was probably the superintendent calling to yell at him a third time, or something equally unpleasant. “Ken Morita.”

“Principal Morita? This is Lieutenant Jack Evans; I’m in charge of the HazMat response team that was at your school earlier today.”

“Right. Yes.” Ken braced himself. “What can I help you with, Lieutenant?”

“Nothing, actually. This is a status report only. As we expected, the sample we collected has disappeared.”

Ken almost dropped the phone. “ _Disappeared?_ What do you mean, disappeared?”

“Mr Morita, we carried out our usual procedure out of an abundance of caution, especially since there was a person involved. But to be honest with you, we’ve seen this kind of substance several times. Whatever it is, it seems non-toxic and disintegrates in roughly two hours.”

“Whatever it is?” Ken echoed. “You mean you don’t know?” He squeezed his eyes shut against the mountains of paper and resisted screaming, _you mean I went through all this for nothing?!_

“Usually by the time we’ve sampled it, got it off site, labelled, and cleared through our system, the sample has disintegrated.” The lieutenant’s voice was wry. “The window is just too tight. I can tell you that it’s some sort of synthesized silk protein, and that it’s Spider-Man’s signature. Do you have a spider problem by any chance?”

“Not that I know of,” Ken said slowly. He minimized his PDF forms and went to look at Roger Harrington’s class schedule immediately before the accident. _Grade 10 Science._ He checked the class roster.

He knew he would find the names before he actually saw them.

 

**4.**

Flash Thompson flounced into his office with a deeply offended air. “Mr Morita, if this is about the rocket, I swear, it wasn’t me.”

“Eugene—Flash—sit down, please.” Ken waited until the boy had plopped into the chair before continuing, “this is not about a rocket.” He mentally filed that away for further inquiry; he hadn’t heard about any rockets yet. “I wanted to talk to you about your sleeping in class.”

Flash looked petulant.

“According to several of your teachers, you’ve begun falling asleep in class almost every day—not always at the same time or in the same class, but consistently so.” Ken fixed the boy with a steady look. “You’re a bright kid with good grades. While I know you don’t find all your classes to your taste, you’ve never started openly sleeping in class before. Is something the matter?”

Flash almost rolled his eyes but caught himself. He crossed his arms and sank further into his chair. “’m just tired.”

Ken raised a brow and waited.

Flash scowled. “Look, I started a new job, okay? Two jobs, actually. The schedule—it’s hard to get used to. That’s all.”

“Oh?” There was a note of polite surprise in Ken’s voice. It wasn’t that Ken discouraged working teenagers—quite the opposite; work built character—but he had never considered Flash Thompson to be amongst those willing to do so. Nor did his parents seem like the type to push him.

Flash’s scowl darkened. “I wrecked my dad’s car, remember? He’s making me pay him back.” This time he did roll his eyes. “It’s going to take me forever! It wasn’t even my fault!”

Ken did remember—and remembered the news reports. “I thought Spider-Man wrecked your father’s car.”

“Yeah, well, ‘wrecked by superhero’ wasn’t part of our insurance coverage.”

Ken thought about Iron Man, the Avengers, and the many, many strange things that were happening in the streets these last several years. “Maybe they’ll offer it soon. I know my insurance premiums are increasing.”

Flash gave him a strange look but took the friendly comment in the spirit it was meant. His scowl lightened marginally, anyway.

“Thanks for telling me, Flash. I appreciate having context.” Ken paused for a moment, considering his words. “Would it help to study with your decathlon friends? Ned, Michelle? Or Peter?”

“I’m not asking Penis—” Flash clapped a hand over his mouth, face flaming.

Ken gave him a _look_.

“Sorry,” Flash croaked after a long moment.

Ken stared at the boy until Flash started cringing. Ken shook his head. “I’ll trust you to be kind to your classmates, and to handle your own schedule. Let your teachers know if you need any help, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Flash fidgeted in his chair. “Can I go now?”

Ken nodded and Flash scrambled out of the chair. The boy was almost out of his office when a thought occurred to Ken: “Flash, was your father’s wrecked car an Audi TT Roadster?”

Flash looked back quizzically. “Yeah. How did you know?”

Ken shrugged. “Lucky guess. Go on.”

He stared at the door for a long time after Flash left.

 

**5.**

“Peter, I see you far too much. I have many students whom I’ve never met face-to-face, and up until this past year I seriously thought you would be one of them.”

Peter winced but said nothing.

Ken sighed. “Look, Peter. When you’d been awarded that internship I could think of no other student who deserved it more. But you’re not the student you used to be. I know you’re under a lot of stress, but whatever you’re doing now, you should remember: being a student is your job. School should be your first priority.”

Silence.

Ken softened his voice. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Peter?”

A frantic shake of the head. “No. I’m sorry. I just…I’ll do better. I promise, I’ll do better.”

Ken sighed again. “I have something for you.” He reached behind his desk and pulled out a battered looking backpack.

Peter started. “My backpack! Well, one of them. ” He hugged it to his chest. “Where’d you find it?”

“I didn’t. A Good Samaritan found it in an alleyway and brought it back here, since it had your wallet and student ID.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank them for me, if you can.” Peter shifted a little, discomfited. “I lose things a lot.”

“I know,” Ken said dryly. He noted that Peter kept the backpack between them like a shield. “We’ve issued you six reprints of your student ID and cafeteria card this month alone.” He shook his head slightly. “I have to ask, though—there are clothes inside your bag. Shirt, jeans, jacket, shoes. Where did you go without your clothes?”

Peter’s face flamed. “You opened it?!”

“We had to look at the ID to figure out whom this belonged to.”

Peter blinked, eyes huge in his face. His mouth opened and closed without a sound. Ken waited. Finally, with a voice like an unoiled hinge, Peter squeaked out, “I…went…streaking.”

“…streaking.” Ken repeated the syllables carefully. “Is that what you kids do nowadays?”

Nod nod.

“And did you go by yourself?”

Another mute nod.

“I see.” Ken kept his voice perfectly even. “Well, I’m glad you got your bag back.”

Several seconds passed by before Peter was brave enough to reach for the zipper. He clumsily unzipped his bag like he couldn’t make his muscles work, casting furtive looks at Ken the entire time. The boy leafed through the old clothes (which were starting to smell), rifled through his wallet, then froze. “Ah, Mr Morita, did you…remove anything?”

“Oh, sorry. I did take the liberty of removing a broken amber glass bottle so you wouldn’t cut yourself doing exactly what you’re doing now.”

“Oh.” Something flashed across Peter’s face. “There was nothing inside, right?”

“No, it was completely empty. If there had been anything it had all…disappeared.” Ken arched a brow. “Do you drink, Peter?”

“What? No! There was nothing inside. I guess I’m thinking of…something else.”

“So…” That was almost a drawl. “You went…streaking…while sober?”

A myriad of emotions chased across Peter’s scarlet face: mortification, consternation, panic, and many more Ken couldn’t name. Peter clenched his bag to his chest so tightly that the polyester tore under his fingers, little tiny creaks of protest. It took him three tries to choke out, “Yes? Sir?”

There was a silence so long Peter looked like he was about to twitch out of his own skin. His eyes kept flickering between Ken’s face and random points in the room: the desk, the wall, the photograph of Private Morita, back to the wall…

“Well,” Peter jerked so hard he must’ve sprained something. Ken kept his voice light, “I guess there’s no point keeping you from your class any longer. You may go, Peter.”

Peter opened his mouth. Closed it. Shivered slightly. “Um, right. T-thanks, Mr Morita.” He lurched to his feet, all long legs and awkward elbows. “For, um, the bag. And everything.”

“You’re welcome, Peter.”

Peter cast a last nervous glance and went out the door, closing it softly behind him. Ken stared at the closed door for a long, long moment, then buried his face into his hands.

By all moral and ethical standards, this was complicity in child endangerment. No one, whether Tony Stark or Steve Rogers or anyone else, should be enlisting fifteen-year-olds to fight crime on the streets. But if the Avengers and his Aunt May hadn’t succeeded in convincing Peter otherwise (dear god Ken hoped they had tried to convince him otherwise), a high school principal was not likely to gain much traction.

He should turn Peter in. He should alert…the authorities, or something. But what good would it do? He’d seen footage of Peter almost singlehandedly hold two sheared pieces of a ferry together. It wasn’t like anyone, short of aliens, other meta-humans, or the now-defunct SHIELD, could make Peter do something he didn’t want to do. Ken now has a very good idea what that Stark Industries internship (that had not gone through the school and thus was not obligated to provide updates, reports, or any kind of paperwork to the administration) consisted of. He hated Tony Stark a little for this.

Maybe Stark would give Peter hazard pay. It wouldn’t make the child endangerment any better, but at least Midtown Tech wouldn’t be floating the cost of Peter’s superhero antics out of its stretched science budget. Purchasing or accounting may get suspicious at how quickly the chemicals were depleting. Should Ken help cover that up? How did he get involved in this mess?

Ken scrubbed at his eyes, suddenly feeling very old. These kids would be the death of him. He shook his head and looked down at the chair Peter had occupied, frantic and nervous and small. Too small for the weight of the world. Too small for the expectations of society. Too small for the reputation of a hero.

“Streaking,” he muttered to himself, and cracked a very, very tired smile. Maybe he’d enjoyed that part a little too much.

It was the least he deserved.

**Author's Note:**

> Principal Morita was my favourite Easter egg by far. The name "Ken" is a nod to the actor, Kenneth Choi.
> 
> Thanks to reader Orla for figuring out the make and model of Flash's car :)


End file.
